


Like a Fish out of Water… in the Water

by orphan_account



Series: TWD Endverse [2]
Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Learning to Swim, M/M, Slice of Life, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:18:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Daryl teaches Cas to swim, and has a fairly obvious epiphany.Takes place in the same timeline as "What a Long Road Home."





	Like a Fish out of Water… in the Water

“I really don’t see why I need to do this.” 

Rolling his eyes at Castiel’s griping, Daryl waded out into the water, the cool waves lapping at his chest through his tank top. It was incredibly refreshing to be out there at night, the heat of the day having soaked into his skin but not the quarry lake, after all he had chosen that particular night for a swim due to the intense heatwave they seemed to be stuck in. The days had been topping out at 95 degrees, and there was no respite in sight, the air muggy and humid beyond belief while the skies stayed as crystal clear as the water he was now wading in.

He’d mentioned to Cas his desire to go swimming a few nights prior as they were laying on opposite ends of his tent, the air too sticky for them to be any closer to one another, only to be floored as Castiel admitted he didn’t know how. Daryl had made it his personal mission that very moment to teach him, and Cas had been all for it at the time.

But when Daryl woke up that morning and announced he was sick to death of feeling uncomfortable, and that this was the night he was going to show Castiel how to swim, his lover had given him a look that told him he wasn’t going to get him in the lake without a fight.

All day long Castiel was crackling like a cherry bomb, shooting side eyes and huffing whenever Daryl mentioned in passing what they were going to do that night. He puffed up like a cat when Daryl told him he didn’t have a choice in the matter, all eye rolls and sneers when he threatened to toss Cas in if he didn’t cooperate. They both knew he would never, and hell probably could never (Cas was a wily son of a bitch when he didn’t want to do something), but Daryl had him convinced to go along with it once he confided that he was worried. 

They lived on the bank of a lake. A deep, secluded lake that was far enough away from camp that if Cas somehow managed to get himself too far away from shore, no one would hear his cry for help. “You need to know how to swim, Cas.” Daryl had protested when Castiel pulled him aside sometime in the sweltering afternoon, telling him to cut it out, that he wasn’t going to do it and there was no reason for him to learn, “I can’t always be around to help you, what would I do if you got hurt, or god forbid you drowned? Man, I couldn’t take that.” 

“I don’t need you to protect me,” Cas complained, his eyebrows cinching in the middle but his eyes betraying him, softening as they often did whenever Daryl let slip that he cared, “I can look out for myself.”

“Not in this, not yet. Why do you think I want to teach you? So you _can_ look out for yourself, on land _and_ in water.” When Castiel opened his mouth to protest Daryl took a hasty look around, double checking that the small stretch of woods they had ducked into was free from prying eyes, before cutting him off with a kiss. “Please?” He had asked as he pulled away, hand cupping Cas’ lightly stubbled chin and their lips mere inches apart, so close that his words puffed across Castiel’s lips, his breath warming his cheeks even more than the hot summer sun.

Cas hadn’t been able to protest much after that.

But now, standing on the bank of the lake in nothing but an ill-fitting Zeppelin t-shirt and black boxer briefs, his earlier tenacity seemed to have been renewed. Daryl turned to face him, his eyebrows raised disbelievingly, and Cas only stared back, ferociously stubborn even as he wrapped his arms around himself, running his hands up and down his arms to combat the sudden gust of wind that picked up around him.

It was still hot, but the wind had come out of nowhere, sending small waves cresting against Daryl’s chest and whipping Cas’ shirt around his too thin torso, tanned skin peeking out from underneath. He huddled down into himself, the hair on his legs standing on end as the sharp gusts chilled his tacky skin, cooling the thin sheen of sweat that covered his limbs like a glove. He looked so uncomfortable, overheated and gross, and Daryl wanted more than anything to be able to pick him up and dunk him in the water, knowing he would feel so much better if he just let himself get washed up, and cool off in the lake.

“Little kids do this.” Daryl tried to reason with him, “Sophia and Carl learned how to swim, you can too. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared.” Cas bit back, crossing his arms tighter across his chest, an insolent pout twisting at his lips.

As vehemently as Cas would deny it however, it was obvious to Daryl that he was, in fact, terrified. How a creature (whatever creature he might have been) as old as Cas had gone his whole life without learning how to swim was beyond him, but Daryl could understand his fear at least. Castiel had watched humanity for so much of his life, at least that was what he had let on, so he must have seen countless people drown. He had to know how dangerous the water, for all that it seemed peaceful and innocuous, could actually be.

Cas was frightened, and though he huddled on the bank of the lake with a look of defiance, the world around him was picking up on it. The air had been heavy and still the whole day, and all night long up until that moment. There had not been a single breeze, Daryl wouldn’t have missed it if there was. All day he had been praying for a small gust of wind, anything to break the smothering haze of heat that cloyed into his lungs, to knock the sun from his shoulders just momentarily. Now though? The world around him had erupted into a clamour of howling squalls, whipping up the water around him and buffeting them both with pebbles and dust.

“C’mon man,” Daryl called, almost yelling through the noise surrounding them, “it ain’t even deep here! Look, it only comes up to my chest!”

“I don’t—” Cas began, cut off by a sharp burst of wind as he turned his head to the side, closing his eyes tightly to protect them from the cloud of dust that battered him, “What if you just show me from here? I’ll watch, I’m a fast learner! I’m sure I’ll get the idea.”

“You can’t learn how to swim on land.” Daryl said, shaking his head before wading closer to Castiel and reaching out a hand. How the rest of the camp was sleeping through the noise and ferocity of the wind, he never would know but he could see the way Castiel was trembling, his hands clutching to his upper arms with a white-knuckled grip. If he was so scared that he had conjured up a windstorm out of nowhere, then Daryl couldn’t let him suffer up there alone. He wasn’t sadistic: he wanted to help Cas, not hurt him.

“Please?” Daryl implored, the water now only up to his knees while he waited for Cas to take his hand, held palm up in the air between them, “I’ll be right here with you, I won’t let you go.”

“Promise me.” Cas murmured, so softly Daryl could hardly make it out over the rush of sound encompassing them, his eyes upturned and forehead creased in an expression of utter helplessness that had Daryl’s heart pounding in his chest, his pulse skyrocketing. What Cas could do to him with a moments glance… Daryl hoped he’d never get used to it.

“I promise, baby.” He said softly, bouncing his hand towards Castiel insistently, willing him to take it, “Now c’mon, we ain’t got all night.”

Daryl breathed a sigh of relief when Castiel hesitantly grasped his hand, the wind dying down to a more manageable level. His fingers knotted around Daryl’s wrist as he pulled him closer, and Daryl backed up slowly, one step at a time until the waves were licking at their hips. Cas gasped sharply, his hold on Daryl’s wrist tightening when he felt the water catch the hem of his shirt, soothing his overheated skin while also tipping him off to their increasing depth, and Daryl felt him try to pull away as the wind picked up again, howling once more.

“I’m right here,” Daryl murmured softly, his free hand pressing into the small of Castiel’s back as he pulled their bodies together, flush from chest to knee, “I’ve got you, don’t worry. Just breathe, okay?”

Nodding furiously, Castiel burrowed his face into his neck, and Daryl had to take a deep, calming breath as his cheek rasped his throat, the heat from Castiel rolling off him in waves and sinking into his skin. He grit his teeth and held on tight, backing slowly into the water, the wind howling around them as the lake pulled up to their chests.

“Daryl, stop.” Cas gasped sharply, hands fisting in the back of Daryl’s shirt, his death grip on Daryl’s wrist abandoned in favour of wrapping his arms around his shoulders and holding on to him like a life preserver, “I can’t touch the bottom, stop.”

“Okay, easy.” Holding tight to Castiel’s waist with one arm, Daryl ran his hand up and down his spine, slipping underneath his shirt without even thinking about it and drawing haphazard circles across the warm expanse of bare skin with the tips of his fingers, “We won’t go any further, alright? We can stay here ‘till you feel comfortable.”

He nodded again, pulling his face away from Daryl’s neck with a shaky exhale and blinking blearily, readjusting to the glimmering light bouncing off the waters surface, the night unconceivably bright. The moon was full and reflected from Castiel’s eyes, blown wide underneath his knotted brow, and his lips pulled into a frown as he looked around, no doubt gauging how far away he was from the shore. Cas’ fingers flexed around his balled-up tank top, and Daryl watched him, bemused, as he mulled over how nervous he should really be.

Always thinkin’ this one, Daryl mused with a smile, not hesitating to press his lips to Castiel’s temple in a soft, sweet kiss.

The wind died instantly.

“What was that for?” Cas asked, pressing himself minutely closer and if Daryl wasn’t looking for it, he might have missed it. As it stood, he was hyperaware of their proximity in that moment, and every move Cas made, from the skirting of his toes against the rocky bottom of the lake to the press of his chest against Daryl’s own as he inhaled, he picked up on immediately.

They had been back a week and a half, and while their day to day lives were interspersed with harrowing near misses with others in the camp, and extenuating omission as to the nature of their suddenly amiable friendship, their nights were encompassed in a comfortable, easy rhythm. Daryl had never been in a relationship before, hell he was still hesitating to call what he and Cas had a relationship, but day by day he was starting to realize that was exactly what it was. And if all relationships were half as easy as what was blossoming between the two of them, then Daryl had to admit he really had been missing out for thirty some odd years.

They just seemed to fit together. Daryl was a planner, meticulous in everything that he did whereas Castiel was ingenuously spontaneous, content to go with his gut and work out the details after the fact. It should have made things impossible, logically they should have clashed and grated against each other until there was nothing left of them but sand and bone, but it worked somehow. Castiel waxed where Daryl would wane, and vice versa, facets of their personalities receding and surfacing where they were needed, when they worked with and not against each other.

In some strange way, it made them better apart from one another too. In camp on his own, and before that with Merle, Daryl hadn’t managed to be anything short of a righteous dick to everyone who crossed his path. But little over a week with Castiel there and he found he could manage conversations (short ones, mind you) with some of the survivors at last. Cas pushed him, forced him to be more social and step outside of his own headspace every so often, and while he was loath to admit, it helped. He wasn’t constantly on the offensive, and outside of others finding out about him and Castiel, he found he didn’t feel as threatened as he had before. And even when he did, in those few and far between moments of insecurity and weakness, Castiel was his safety net, there to catch him and bring him back from the brink when he was close to going off.

And then there was Castiel. The suicidal junky only a week ago who was quickly becoming one of the most influential members of their rag tag group of misfits. Daryl helped to reign him in, to center and focus the boundless anxious energy that propelled him from project to problem like a hamster on speed. His need to help everybody and solve every dilemma was admirable, but self-destructive and Cas frequently spread himself too thin, wearing out and spiralling before he had even managed to do any good.

It was like his mind worked ten times faster than his body could allow, and Daryl had a knack for being able to spot a melt down long before it hit. There had been a few nights already where Castiel was floundering at the end of his rope, hanging at the precipice of a complete breakdown over something that seemed so small to anyone but Cas. The way his collar chafed at his neck, stubbing a toe or forgetting to check a snare could send him into a panic, frustration over failing at something he thought should be simple bubbling just below the surface, threatening to boil over. And it was in those frantic moments that only Daryl could reign him in, and talk him down. Daryl was the only one who could rationalize with him, and help him understand there was nothing wrong with him. He was the only one who could distract Cas, help him to focus on something else, which was how Daryl discovered there was so much Castiel didn’t know or hadn’t experienced in the first place.

Like swimming, for instance.

Teaching a grown man to swim when he clearly wasn’t going to cooperate might not sound like most people’s idea of a good time, and if it were anyone else he was teaching Daryl wouldn’t go to the trouble. But it was Castiel, who wasn’t always human, who talked about Nabokov, Scipio Africanis and Mussolini like he knew them personally. Who waxed poetic while watching bees buzz through the woods, and also while watching Daryl skin a rabbit. Who had never tasted chocolate, or learned how to tie a knot. Who collected random pieces of junk like they were something to be revered. And Daryl would go to any lengths to teach him something new, or to help him sort out whatever internal crisis he was currently in the midst of. He would do anything he had to do to make Cas happy.

“Because I’m in love with you,” hovered on the very tip of his tongue, but Daryl swallowed it down, choosing instead to smile and shake his head before urging Castiel to lift his feet from the lake bed.

“You gotta learn to float, just a bit. Part of swimming is floating.” Castiel’s eyes widened almost comically at the suggestion, and Daryl responded by moving Cas’ hands from his shirt to his upper arms, where he clung to Daryl’s sunburnt skin like he was already drowning. “I’m gonna keep you afloat, alright? I’ll be holding on to you just like this,” he squeezed Castiel’s triceps in demonstration, his hands holding tighter than necessary to reassure him, as the water already deep enough that Castiel was light as a feather in his grasp, “and you’re going to shift your weight forward. Lean up onto your chest, but don’t dunk your face okay? We don’t need you freaking out before we even get started.”

“We haven’t started yet?” Castiel asked with so much dismay that Daryl couldn’t stifle the hearty laugh that broke free from deep in his chest, punching out of him startlingly and without permission.

“No, but if you’d just lean forwards, then we will have.” Smiling at Cas’ put upon expression, Daryl leaned forward one last time, their lips grazing in the barest hint of a teasing kiss before pulling back and tugging on their joined arms, “Once you’re floating on your stomach, I want you to just start kicking your legs. No moving your arms just yet.”

“I don’t know, Daryl.” There was a defeated lilt to his voice that gave Daryl pause, and Cas looked torn between wanting to comply and giving into his fear of the inky, dark water that surrounded them, “You won’t let go?”

“Never, Cas.” And the words surprised even him, though they came from his mouth, spoken with enough tenacity that both of them knew he wasn’t just talking about his death grip on Cas’ arms, “I won’t ever let you go, I swear.”

Castiel threw himself forward with so much force he ended up dunking his whole head in the water, but to his credit he only panicked a little, flailing with his legs and digging his nails into Daryl’s arms like a pissed off cat before he managed to right himself. And true to his word, Daryl didn’t dare let go.

He held on for dear life.


End file.
